


and when thy loss shall be repaid with gains

by Neurotoxia



Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Canonical Character Death, Gen, Hospitals, Implied/Referenced Death in Childbirth, M/M, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-09
Updated: 2015-02-09
Packaged: 2018-03-11 09:59:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,881
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3323288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Neurotoxia/pseuds/Neurotoxia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bard spends the night in hospital, waiting for his third child to be delivered in a complicated birth when he meets a stranger going through even greater torment.</p>
            </blockquote>





	and when thy loss shall be repaid with gains

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to hannibalsketches who gave me permission to turn [their headcanon](http://hannibalsketches.tumblr.com/post/110475631242/so-me-and-my-asshole-of-a-sister) into a ficlet. Naturally, I pushed way past the definitions of a ficlet and cannot in good conscience still call it that. But I don't think anyone minds, right?

Something about tonight feels off and Bard wishes he could put his finger on it. He is supposed to be eager and and excited, the birth of his third child so close. But the doctors and nurses have been in the labour ward for a long time, much longer than when Sigrid or Bain were born. Maybe it’s because Tilda is early, she wasn’t due for another two weeks. Maybe that’s what his bad feeling is about – he’s worried about the girl they named Tilda as soon as they found out it was going to be a girl. It’s his late mother’s name.

Bard wishes he could be in there with his wife, but he had two toddlers to look after and they have no other family members who could keep an eye on Sigrid and Bain while they’re in the hospital. At least it distracts Bard, trying to keep Bain from chewing on the crayons he found in the children’s corner of the waiting room. To his right, he’s watching Sigrid attempt colouring a gossip magazine. 

Twenty minutes later, a nurse informs him Ella is moved to the ICU, emergency surgery, but not to worry too much yet, it’s just a precaution. Bard follows her to the ICU waiting area in a daze, Bain on his hip and Sigrid clinging to his hand. Sigrid asks about her mum and all Bard can say is that she’s fine and just a little longer and Sigrid will see her new little sister. He has to keep it together, he can’t lose his head. 

In the waiting area, Sigrid latches onto the picture books. Bain has fallen asleep, thank god. Gently, Bard puts him down onto one of the chairs and looks around for the coffee maker. Caffeine might not be the best idea when he’s already agitated, but Bard needs a drink and alcohol is not available. 

Only then he notices they’re not alone here in the dead of the night, there’s someone else sitting in the dull cornflower blue plastic chairs at the end of the room: the man is white as a sheet, his black dress shirt is wrinkled and done up wrong and his long blond hair is pulled into a messy ponytail, two strands spilling out at his temples. He looks like a wreck.

“Hey, are you okay?” Bard asks, unable to ignore someone when they look like they need help, even if he has more than enough to worry about himself. Ella says it’s his best and his worst quality, and she tries to look put out when she brings it up, but she always says it fondly.

He’s startled the man who flinches upon hearing Bard’s voice. Apparently, he didn’t notice them coming in.

“I…” the man starts, before his mouth snaps shut again.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to pry,” Bard apologises. “I talk too much when I’m worried or nervous. My wife is in surgery and I know nothing about her condition.”

He is babbling to a stranger who looked like hell warmed over. That isn’t what he wanted to say to him. Bard didn’t plan to make it about himself.

“My wife, she…” the stranger murmurs, his eyes trailing from Bard’s face to the seat next to him. Bard becomes aware of another detail he missed the first time: there’s a carrier with a sleeping baby next to the man. The child can’t be older than six months.

Shit.

“Is she..?” Bard asks, fearing he already knows the answer.

The man nods. “Car crash,” he adds in a barely audible whisper and closes his eyes with the pain of speaking it out loud. He grasps the side of the carrier, as if trying to hold onto his kid for support without waking them up.

“Oh God,” Bard whispers and sits down next to the shivering man. He doesn’t know him or the wife he just lost, but it’s a pain he can’t imagine, even as eerily close he is to it himself. “I’m so sorry.”

He knows it’s an empty phrase, completely useless in the face of such hurt, but Bard means it with all his heart. His hand finds the stranger’s shoulder, Bard’s own troubles for the moment forgotten as he looks upon the man’s distressed features. He can’t be much older than Bard, the wedding band on his left hand still shines with the polish of a new ring. Bard’s own ring has collected a few scratches in the last three years, but he remembers the time well when they were still newlyweds with little Sigrid stealing all their sleep and yet already planning another child. You plan for the first family car, the first holidays as a family, your child’s first birthday. At their age, you don’t plan for death. 

The man sags against Bard’s side when he touches his shoulder. He doesn’t cry, but Bard feels him shiver and the tremors shaking him. The shock is catching up with him.

“What am I going to do?” the man whispers, sounding helpless.

“I don’t know,” Bard says, giving the stranger’s shoulder a squeeze. He wants to tell him it’ll get better, that he needs to be strong for his child now. But it sounds like a pile of clichés Bard wouldn’t want to hear himself. It seems impossible to see the light at the end of the tunnel when you feel like the train just flew off the rails.

The man buries his face in his hands. Bard catches Sigrid watching them and he smiles at his daughter. She’s too shy to come over but she smiles back, pacified. Bain is still sleeping soundly.

They sit like this for a while; Bard can’t tell how much time passes, but it feels like forever, the ticking clock on the wall loud in the otherwise empty room. The men haven’t spoken another word, but words have become meaningless anyway. Sigrid has fallen asleep holding Bain against her chest. The stranger is still shivering and holding onto the carrier with one hand, knuckles gone white.

“Mr Bowman?” A doctor steps into the room, still dressed in bloodied scrubs, mask pulled from his face and pooling around his neck. “Can I speak to you?” Neutral face. Unreadable. Bard hates it.

“Yes,” Bard nods and the stranger moves, sitting back up straight to let Bard go.

He catches Bard’s wrist as Bard moves to wake Sigrid and he looks back. The other’s face is still painted with anguish, but Bard sees the ghost of a grateful smile in his eyes.

“Thank you,” the man whispers and lets go again.

Bard nods and goes to gather up his children – he doesn’t have the heart to wake Sigrid, even if two kids are too heavy to carry for long. He follows the doctor outside, his heart beating in his throat. Bard spent the whole time worrying over someone else, now his own fear comes slamming back with the force of a freight train. 

The words from the doctor’s mouth Bard experiences as if witnessed by a third person. He can’t process what he hears, the words are there but they don’t make any sense. Hemorrhage. Couldn’t get the bleeding to stop. Nothing they could do. Undetected prior condition perhaps, they will find out. Baby okay and healthy, even if it was a close call. Tremendously sorry for the loss. Would he like to see his daughter or speak to someone first, a priest or a counsellor?

Bard doesn’t know how the rest of the night happens, how he came to be in the newborn unit with a baby on his arm, not realising that this is his daughter. He doesn’t know how he managed to tell them her name is Tilda or how he got Sigrid and Bain home and into bed, both of them not awake for any of it. He hasn’t told them they have a sister, hasn’t told them mummy isn’t coming home. How can he ever tell them?

It’s five in the morning when he sits down at his kitchen table, complete silence for the first time in the last twenty-four hours. Bard feels himself shivering from exhaustion, but he’s too numb to consider sleep. He still feels like he’s on the outside looking in. Three children. He has three children to raise now. Alone.

Bard buries his face in his hands.

* * *

Eight years later, Bard is herding Sigrid, Bain and Tilda into the community centre with one arm, balancing juice boxes, books and a handheld console in the other. A support group for children who have lost a parent. Bard has no idea what good it’ll do, but he wants to try. Bain and Tilda don’t remember Ella, and even Sigrid’s memories are few and far between, but he knows they struggle being the only kid in school or kindergarten classes who don’t have a mum anymore. He knows some bullies pick on his children for it and he wants to help them, show them they’re not the only ones who don’t have both mum and dad anymore. Bard wants to give them a space where no one will think they’re weird because they don’t know their mum.

The group is bigger than Bard expected in this town. There are kids of all ages, younger than Tilda and older than Sigrid. Most of the parents are scattered around the fringes of the room, holding mugs and pastries. Some look well, others remind Bard of himself eight years ago with their harried looks and dark rings under their eyes. The counsellor took the kids off Bard’s hands, introducing them to the other children and encouraging Bard to get a cup of coffee before they start.

“Dad, can Tauriel come home with us later?” Bard hears a shy voice to his left, looking over to a small blond boy about Tilda’s age speaking to his parent.

“Of course,” the father agrees and Bard does a double take.

He knows that voice, knows that long blond hair, even if it’s not in a messy ponytail. The buttons on his shirt are done up properly this time, but there is still no mistaking it. It’s a face he hasn’t seen in eight years, but he hasn’t forgotten anything that happened during that night. If the man’s widening blue eyes as he looks over to Bard are anything to go by, neither has he.

It’s the stranger from the ICU. The small boy next to him has to be the former baby in the carrier.

“It’s you…” Bard says and takes a step towards the man.

“The ICU,” the man replies and looks just as surprised as Bard. “That means your wife, she–“

Right, the man had never learnt what became of Ella. Bard is surprised he remembers Bard speaking about her being in surgery. He doesn’t think he would have been able to.

“I’m sorry,” the man says and looks genuine saying it.

“Thank you,–” Bard says and grimaces. Ella’s death doesn’t hurt anymore like it used to, but neither does he like revisiting the old wounds. “I never got your name that night.”

“Thranduil,” the man says with a small smile and extends his hand.

“Bard,” he replies and takes Thranduil’s hand in a firm grip.

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from Anne Bradstreet's ["Before the Birth of One of her Children"](http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/175747)


End file.
